Snow-free winter contrasts with 1950

Friday, February 15, 2013

Weather forecasters say Western Washington could make it through winter without significant snowfall. “I don’t think we’re going to see any big producer,” said a National Weather Service meteorologist in Seattle on Feb. 11, noting the season’s only measureable snowfall was a measly .6 of an inch on Dec. 18 at Sea-Tac Airport. Snowpack in the Cascades and Olympics is near 100% of normal, which bodes well for summer irrigation. It’s been 63 years since the Puget Sound region suffered through a true blizzard. In January 1950, Seattle shivered under 21 inches of snow that fell in less than 24 hours, and days later the Seattle temperature dropped to zero degrees. Spokane recorded 24 below zero, and it dropped below zero for 17 days there altogether during the cold snap. Read the historylink.org essay.